INSEAD Knowledge is a daily-updated content portal devoted to sharing innovative ideas and business thinking from INSEAD, the global business school. Its articles and blogs provide a platform for the school's thought leaders to address questions and concerns that are top-of-mind for global professionals at all levels, as well as business school students. In addition, Knowledge content often draws on recent research performed by faculty, bringing the latest academic breakthroughs to bear on current events and emerging trends affecting the business environment worldwide.

Move Over Social Media - Here Comes Augmented Reality

You only need to look at the numbers to know that social media is here to stay. Two hundred million new users joined FacebookFacebook in the last year alone growing the massive social networking site to 800 million active users. Career networking site LinkedInLinkedIn reported 131 million users last year, Twitter touched 100 million, and there are many other sizable and niche nuanced social media players.

So what next for social media and how do companies and brands engage more strategically amid the plethora of established and emerging platforms?

In a recent marketing campaign, Swedish clothing retailer H&MH&M and a mobile application called GoldRun created a virtual photo scavenger hunt allowing users to take a picture, using GPS-synced smartphones, of virtual items that appeared in front of certain H&M stores in Manhattan. Doing so unlocked a 10 percent discount for an in-store purchase. Then, with photo integration, shoppers could see how they looked in those clothes and upload the altered images onto the social networking site Facebook to share with friends.

Augmenting reality?

It’s called “augmented reality” and may well be the next big wave to hit social media. That’s according to Soraya Darabi, a digital strategist and co-founder of Food Spotting, a location-based mobile application which lets users upload and share pictures of their favourite dishes. Augmented reality is feeling virtually connected to something in the real world without being physically present, explains Darabi in an interview with INSEAD Knowledge at the World Knowledge Forum in Seoul. H&M’s virtual scavenger hunt is just one aspect of augmented reality as a marketing tool – it really extends to a myriad of services. Add social media and it opens up a whole new set of possibilities.

“It’s really the beginning of a location-based information revolution,” continues the 27-year old Darabi, noting the growing popularity of geo-location mobile applications such as Foursquare, Social Loop, Gowalla, that share information based on physical location. On Foursquare, you ?check in” through your mobile application and friends synced via your social network are immediately notified. Launched in 2009, Foursquare reported a billion ?checks ins” through December. “You will be hard pressed to see an application emerge that doesn’t have some sort of component that doesn’t involve location.” says Darabi. Meanwhile, smartphones and mobile technology and applications will continue to be key drivers for social media. “2011 was the first year there were more smartphones than clean water,” she highlights. “We have to also be particularly cognisant of the fact the developing world is now online for the first time in a significant real-time way. The recent revolutions in the Middle East and the Arab Spring owes itself entirely to the new use of social media on the ground.”

Companies and brands – whether it’s a Fortune 500 organisation or neighbourhood retailer – are responding to social media in a big way creating targeted marketing campaigns on social networks and increasing interactions and engagement with audiences. Foursquare, for instance, allows businesses to advertise promotions when a customer checks in; around 500,000 merchants already use the service. Scoot, a budget airline subsidiary of Singapore AirlinesSingapore Airlines, has garnered about 28,000 fans” on Facebook since its marketing launch in November. The airline doesn’t begin flying until mid-2012 but they are drumming up the brand by inviting fans to participate and then vote on an official slogan challenge. Darabi, who advises companies like General Electric, ABC News as well as start-ups, emphasises the value of social networks to young companies that often lack marketing budgets.

The beta approach

How does she advise organisations on where to focus their social media efforts? “It really depends on the people with whom I work,” says Darabi. “I suggest they test out all the platforms that hit particular verticals of their business. With ABC news, she recommended they participate in all platforms that are garnering the most interest in news. Apart from the social media giants, it included the photo-sharing mobile application Instagram “where people are sharing and viewing photos to understand what’s happening on the ground” and Livestream, a video provider for real time event coverage. “What I advise companies to do is think about social media as one big experiment.” She calls this the beta approach. It’s “selecting platforms that are scaling quite rapidly, testing [these platforms] lightly, making sure you understand new mediums before other people do, having a first-to-market advantage and ultimately experimenting. There is a niche and nuanced social media company for everyone.”

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.